


a river of wind

by mstigergun



Series: Inglorious [15]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F, Fantasy, Gen, Longing, and brought together by feelings, and several generations, i always feel like i need to again point out that these ladies are only very distant cousins, separated by a hundred years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:36:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5436872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstigergun/pseuds/mstigergun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alla returns to Skyhold, surely it will be to trumpets ringing and flags snapping in the wind. She deserves no such thing, but fantasy offers brightness on this otherwise wearisome journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a river of wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [delphox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/delphox/gifts).



> Prompted by [weyrbound](http://weyrbound.tumblr.com) for this pairing and a fantasy. This takes place before ["wild is the wind,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5004538) but after ["Golden Scythe."](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5049310) Alla is headed back toward Skyhold with her sister, Yuliya, in tow, and in dire need of lyrium.
> 
> (I love this ship the most, okay. Alla/Eloise is the best and if I could vote a ship president, I would vote this ship to be in charge of literally all of the other ships. These women know what they're doing.)

Alla rides in through the gates to Skyhold, the sky above a blue bright enough to burn against the backs of her eyes. The banners high above the ramparts snap in the air: if she closes her eyes, she might imagine they’re applause. Though why she should be applauded for merely  _returning_  –

She pulls her horse to a stop, scouring the upper courtyard, where curious onlookers are perched. Her gaze flicks first to the roof where she’d last seen her brother and, sure enough, there he is, perched next to the elven archer whose mouth is far fouler than Alla might have guessed for someone who still looks all of twelve.

Alla swings down, the gravel of the yard crunching beneath her heel.

It’s the tower that pulls her eyes next. She huffs out a breath, grasping her mare’s reins against her thin gloves.

And yes, there, if she looks quite steadily –

A woman standing in the distance, a strong shape against the tall building.

Alla looks away again, suddenly warm despite the sharp chill in the air. She shifts her shoulders, the plush ruff of her cloak brushing her cheek as she drops her mare off in the spartan stables. Already, Yuliya’s peeled off to chase down their brother. No doubt she’ll have none of the same reticence that Alla has where Leonid’s concerned: the whole way back, she chattered about him endlessly, a warmth she hadn’t possessed since –

Well, since long before events had played out as they had.

The trip has been good for her, her skin – the palest of all of them – flushed with the cold and fresh air. Her wild, dark hair tamed by the long plait she let Alla knot into place.

Even Leonid will be thrilled to see her.

But Alla –

Well, she’s beckoned elsewhere. She climbs the steep steps to the ramparts, picking her way across the wide walkway toward the mage’s tower. Though the keep is a fortress around her – already fortified, already steady in a way she hadn’t seen before – her footsteps feel unsteady, as though she walks on the bobbing prow of a ship cutting a path across choppy seas.

The air is vicious: if she’d thought it chill before, Firstfall sees the wind made cruel.

Despite that, Alla feels the flush sitting high across her cheekbones, something she can’t quite keep in check. Though why she should feel compelled to hide such a thing escapes her.

The road has made many things clear, after all: that the Inquisition is a necessary, powerful force for order in the world; that Yuliya will benefit from being beneath its broad wings; that –

That Lady Eloise is as transfixing as ever.

She walks her way toward the tower, steady. Even the cold can’t touch her, though it rustles through the downy fur lining her cloak, though her armour fails to keep the worst of it out. She feels nothing beyond the steady beating of her heart, and the certainty of the feeling that lies therein.

In the distance, she sees Eloise, and Alla thinks distantly that seeing her lady is not unlike seeing sunrise: glorious, in the soft way that makes words difficult. Speaking seems almost blasphemy in the presence of such magnificence.

Lady Eloise is steady as the approaches, though the wind whips around her, stirring her pale robes into flared panels. The sky that stretches above them in endless brightness is vast beyond measure, but seems suddenly very small, a mere backdrop against which Eloise stands.

Alla feels the smile shape her features before she can speak. She draws nearer still, pausing only to dip her head, hand clasped over the breastplate of her armour. “My lady,” she murmurs as she straightens, reaching to take Lady Eloise’s hand in the supple deerskin of her thin glove.

Though their skin doesn’t touch, Alla can almost imagine, for a moment, that she feels something –

Warm. Bright as the sky above and wild as the wind, just there beneath her lady’s palm.

Eloise smiles, a bare thing – fleeting, but so very beautiful that Alla finds it difficult, for a moment, to breathe. “Lady Alla,” she says, hand lingering in the curve of Alla’s palm. “Your journey was a success.”

“It was, my lady,” says Alla, still clasping Eloise’s hand in her own. “Though far sweeter now, to see you again.” She steps in closer, the wind roaring in her ears – though that might be her pulse. Beneath her skin, the wide, bright sky.

Eloise’s smile softens, as Alla reaches – tentative – to brush one of her many braids behind the dark curve of her ear. How accustomed she is to staring down into a woman’s eyes, Alla thinks distantly. How very remarkable it is to meet Lady Eloise’s eyes in the steady gaze of equals.

Her heart throbs beneath her armour, a distant echo. She steps closer still. “My lady,” Alla begins. “If I might –”

“Alla.”

A sharp iteration.

Alla’s head jerks up. She glances over her shoulder, to where her sister steers her dark gelding down the uneven path behind her.

“Yes?” she asks, heat flaring to life behind her cheeks. sweat gathering between her shoulderblades beneath her armour – dusty, now, from the road. Smeared with mud from miles and miles of travel since she’d first met with Yuliya in Highever.

Yuliya, pale though she is, urges her horse forward over the rocky path until he draws even with Alla’s mare. Her mouth is a thin line, temple sheened with sweat, though the air is cold and the day’s riding has been easy enough.

She hadn’t come with nearly enough lyrium, but then –

That’s the entire problem, tidily summarized. A problem that will cease to be so once they reach Skyhold finally. It’s been a longer journey than Alla had hoped, but Yuliya is not at her best, and each day sees her worse.

“We should make camp soon,” her sister offers, voice growing hoarse at its edges. “The winds are picking up. I wouldn’t be surprised if a storm finds us before the night’s through.”

“You’re quite right,” Alla says, still uncomfortably warm. She looks toward the horizon, the Frostbacks a series of arrows pointing upward. Sharp enough to cut, as keen as this desire that lives within her. That’s left her –

Surprised seems inadequate. She’s certainly been enamoured of women before, but this – may be different. It certainly  _feels_  different, has set up camp inside the corners of her mind that she likes to keep tidy and in perfect marching order. Instead, all is Eloise, and the distant promise that all will be well in Skyhold.

Ah well, she’ll have ample hours to indulge her foolish fantasies once they’ve made camp in the next likely gulley. Alla shoots her sister a quick smile, one meant to offer some comfort as Yuliya fights her own internal battles. Alla might be wistful about a lady in Skyhold, but that’s little indeed compared to the burdens Yuliya must bear.

Though –

“Sister,” says Alla absently, as their horses work their way down the steep slope as the sun inches its way toward the horizon.

“Yes?” asks Yuliya, her jaw tight though her dark stare is kind as ever.

“I should – like your advice, if you don’t mind.”

“My  _advice_!” repeats Yuliya, eyebrows flashing up. “Of course, Alla. Though you always seem to be the one saving  _me_. I’m not sure I’ll be of much use.”

“Ah, I suspect you will be,” Alla sighs. “You see, this concerns… a matter of the heart.”

Her sister’s smile is immediate, bright in a way that pulls Alla right through time, to when Yuliya was still  _Yuliya_  and not – the haunted woman she was made into by the Chantry. There is hope yet she may once again be the sister Alla recalls, the sister for whom she –

It’s a thought with no end point, only an endless pull downward, and so Alla discards it.

Yuliya’s smile is steady, crooked in a way that reminds Alla keenly of Leonid. “Why, you need only  _ask_. Let’s start at the very beginning, Alla. What’s her name?”

Which Alla gives her, because it is very much time for her to take action. If these are the dreams living beneath Alla’s skin, if these are the realms to which her mind turns when faced with bristling mountains and the endless expanse of sky above, then she’d best determine how to proceed. The weeks have changed nothing, and Alla –

Well. She would know how to make fantasy reality, if such a thing is possible. If such a thing is possible, she will see it done.


End file.
